Cap­i­tal tight­ens car emis­sion stan­dards

Bei­jing has an­nounced stricter emis­sion stan­dards for cars in or­der to im­prove air qual­ity in the cap­i­tal.

Start­ing on Dec 15, gaso­line cars with National I and II emis­sion stan­dards will be banned from the road in Bei­jing when the city has an or­ange or red airqual­ity alert.

Those cars will also be banned from the road from Monday to Fri­day start­ing on Feb 15 next year.

The num­ber of cars with National I and II emis­sion stan­dards make up 8 per­cent of the cars regis­tered in Bei­jing, ac­count­ing for more than 30 per­cent of all car emis­sions in the city, be­cause of their low stan­dards, ac­cord­ing to Fang Li, spokesman for the Bei­jing Mu­nic­i­pal En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Bureau.

There are 5.7 mil­lion cars in Bei­jing, which pro­duce about 500,000 met­ric tons of pol­lut­ing emis­sions an­nu­ally, ac­cord­ing to the bureau.

Car emis­sions are one of the ma­jor sources of air pol­lu­tion in Bei­jing. (Photo 3)